ABSTRACT
The end of the twentieth century seemed to usher in the beginning of a new social democratic age. For a few years, the majority of European countries was governed by social democratic parties. In countries that had long been governed by conservatives or Christian democrats, such as the UK or Germany, the Social Democrats’ electoral success coincided with a general spirit of optimism. At the same time, however, social democratic governments were faced with new challenges. The accelerated processes of global and European market integration since the 1970s, changes in demographic and vocational structures, and the transformation of everyday life meant that the government’s job was markedly different from what it had been in the mid-1970s. Twenty years ago, Fritz Scharpf, with remarkable prescience, called this the “political life-or-death question of social democracy.”
